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BELGIUM : Our Great Trip 2015 – Part 2 – The Werchter Rock Festival

Do you know how at the beginning of the summer season, when the atmosphere becomes much lighter and the weather heats up just right, information about music festivals start to pop up all around?

In the celebrity field, it’s tough to ignore the photos that adorn all websites and magazines of the coolest models and singers at the famous Coachella Festival; and when it comes to fashion, ALL of the stores {Pull & Bear, Forever 21, H&M and others} are full of items and fashion productions that are related to the festivals – dresses, overalls, sunglasses, jewelry – all with a strong festival vibe…

h&m coachella

If you ask me – I love it! A combination of summer, good music, fashion and even some camping is the most FUN you can have!

The only problem is that in our little country, Israel, we don’t have music festivals with self-respect {in my opinion, of course}… It’s very difficult to bring successful foreign artists to Israel, and even if they manage to, the price of the tickets are crazy, so an international scale music festival would be almost impossible to organize in this country.

So we have 2 options :

  1. Fantasize about an amazing music festival.
  2. Fly to one abroad!

This year we stopped fantasizing and decided to fly – not just any festival, but to the oldest and best festival in Europe – the Rock Werchter Festival! As I’ve said earlier in this post, the festival was the core and we planned the whole trip around it, and we did quite a great job 😉 A combination of an urban trip in European cities + camping and an insanely good festival is definitely the way to go!

Press play to get a feel of the atmosphere there…

Now let me give you some information about this festival…

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

The Rock Werchter Festival won the title of the best festival in the world several years in a row {there’s a reason around 120,000 people go every year – it’s insane!!!} and it’s one of the oldest festivals in Europe, taking place for over 40 years in Belgium, near the pastoral and green town named Werchter {how surprising…}.

The festival has three stages – the main outdoors stage and two smaller ones in closed complexes, but don’t let the name confuse you, it does indeed indicative the tendency to present ensembles of crazy guitar players, but you could actually find an interesting variety of artists and musical genres on the stages – mostly mainstream, or on the way there.

So basically, this is a winning recipe: four full days of sun, green nature, live music in every style, thousands of people from around the world, good food and lots of alcohol.

You could get this amazing package for 250 euros, including the camping and the round-trip train ride from any station in Belgium – definitely worth it when you compare it to the price of one concert ticket, no?

Let's Talk Camping…

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

To be honest with you, I was a little nervous before the flight to the festival… I mean, we’re talking about four days of camping in the wild, which is not something any spoiled girl can handle. Among the nightmares I had were the chemical portable toilets from my days in the Scouts, the lack of showers and bangs that won’t be able to handle the burden of sleeping in a tent…

I was happy to discover a completely different situation when we got there – this year, for the first time, the festival organizers weren’t satisfied with the idea of just having chemical portable toilets and actually arranged a normal restroom {with toilets that flush!} throughout the festival and camping areas – it was a dream come true! Besides that, for a relatively minor cost of 4 euros, you could take a shower in arranged showers with hot water and they even had a private area you can get organized in 24 hours a day… seems like these guys understand a thing or too .

Now there was only one concern left, but the most important one – my bangs! Of course I came equipped with dry shampoo and other skin care necessary for camping, but I was surprised to discover that the festival arrangers thought about this, too – not only could you find a stand with blow dryers near the shower room for all of the girls to use {maybe boys, too – who knows…}, but in the festival complex itself there were two cool small hair salons that were free… one for men and one for women = PROBLEM SOLVED.

For the makeup lovers out there, they also set up a cute stand with professional makeup artists for anyone to enjoy – is there something they didn’t think about for this festival?

Another nice service provided by one of the sponsors of the festival is a portable charging device that cost of a few euros … We brought some chargers from home that lasted exactly one day, so you could totally say it saved us from being disconnected to the outer world.

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

The camping at the festival is divided into several large and very neat areas – you could say that in terms of comfort this festival got a perfect 10 from me. There’s still the issue of sleeping uncomfortably in tents, but it was something you could definitely tolerate once you get up in the morning for another day of the festival and forget all of the 3 AM cursing and bitching 😉 .

Let's Talk Food…

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

I couldn’t believe the number of food stands they had in the camping area and in the festival area itself!

I’m talking about dozens of stands with a wide variety of food from all around the world. Of course everyone’s favorite festival foods – French fries, hamburgers and hot dogs in buns – still stared there, but besides those, they had Asian food, ice cream, fruits, shakes, shawarma, falafel, fish & chips and even a few gourmet stands that served dishes that would impress any “real” restaurant.

Along with all of this good food, most stands served two kinds of beers – Jupiler {the lightest and non-intoxicating beer in Belgium in my opinion} and Hoegaarden Rose that was excellent in my opinion. There was also one single stand that served two more types of Hoegaarden flavors.

Although they decided to offer healthy options like fruit and salads this year {they were lame and expensive}, I think I consumed more junk food during this festival than I ate over the last ten years – trust me, I’m not exaggerating.

And how can you blame me? What do you do all day at the festival – drink beer, and what goes best with beer – French fries and their other fried relatives, Enough Said.

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Let's Talk Recycle…

Something that really amazed me at the festival was the recycling awareness.

Coca-Cola – one of the biggest sponsors of the festival, ran a recycling campaign during the whole festival giving you a coupon for a free drink {a coupon in Werchter = money} for every used cup you collect and take back to the Coca-Cola stand for recycling.
This way the festival’s complex manages to stay relatively clean and we help save the planet – I absolutely loved this idea!

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

Let's Talk Activities…

If you've ever gone to a festival, you're probably familiar with the dead time between performances, especially in the morning when you’re full of strength and your feet still function.

This is exactly where all of the competitions and various activities scattered around the festival area come handy – each of the companies that sponsored the festival set up a booth with various cool activities and when you’re done, you receive a fun souvenir.
Another cool thing were these huge walls they brought and talented artists drew on them….

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

Let's Talk Music…

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

The highlight of the music festival was the massive number of live performances over four days straight.

When we bought the tickets for the festival, about six months before we flew there, they published a very short line-up that grew slowly but surely.

The truth is that this year wasn’t the line-up of my dreams, there were several bands and singers I wanted to attend {like the Foo Fighters, Counting Crows, Florence and the Machine and more…} But they didn’t fill all of the days and yet I decided to fly and soak up a bit of the festival atmosphere and to hear new and interesting music along with the beloved and familiar music.

The final blow to the list of appearances, which I wasn’t exactly excited about to begin with, was the curse there was on the festival – two months before the festival the production announced the first cancellation – the singer Sam Smith, who had to cancel due to an operation on his vocal cords. This cancellation must have opened Pandora's Box for other cancellations since a total of six performances of various artists were cancelled until the festival started and during it, too. The most famous and largest band to cancel were the Foo Fighters – that really sucked.

Despite the relative lack of my enthusiasm from the line-up and despite all of the annoying cancellations – the festival was AMAZING!

You’re probably asking what’s so good about a mediocre music festival line-up {compared to previous years}…
Let me put it this way – 4 days with my favorite men in the world, packed with food and beer, afternoon naps on the grass and new and good music – who needs more than that?!

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פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

The End…

The festival was amazing and although four days for a camping festival was more than enough, I had a little twinge in my heart when it was over.

Fortunately, we continued straight from the festival to Amsterdam for an entire week which softened the pain a bit…
I have no doubt that this isn’t the last we’ll spend the summer in one of the coolest festivals Europe has to offer, so until next time…

פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival פסטיבל רוק וורכטר rock werchter summer festival

And finally –

A video from Florence and the Machine’s excellent performance… {Please ignore the Belgian’s lack of rhythm}

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